Milestone

 One milestone reached and now I have to wait again.

As of yesterday, most lights are functioning. I have high and low beams, park lights, taillights, license plate light, turn signals, hazard flashers and dash lights…except for the speedometer. The turn signal and hazard indicators display inside the speedometer, but the backlighting does not function. I don’t recall testing the backlighting on the speedometer when I installed the gauges, but if I did, something killed it since then.

The power windows are also operating, but the passenger side is sticking at the low end of travel. It tested fine after installation, so that was a surprise. I have to remove the door panel to troubleshoot the latch, so I'll have one more thing to adjust or repair.

I had previously expressed satisfaction with my rewire engineering, but any joy about my wiring skills was quickly suppressed when I ran across a couple of really stupid wiring mistakes.

One big mistake was trying to integrate parts and functions from old and newer vehicles while at the same time adding a bunch of modern aftermarket equipment. The biggest problem was using the OEM lights and light switches and the ignition switch from a “late 70s” Dodge truck. I made the mistake of assuming that just because the wire bundle from my steering column switch matched the colors from the ’73 truck schematic that I used when laying out my master wiring diagram. I wasted many hours over that dumb mistake.

After chasing weird lighting problems for far too long, I resorted to simple logic to hook up the taillight power and turn signal wires. Once again, the problem was my fault for trusting color codes from different vehicles. That wasted effort ate up the better part of two days, but at least the basic wiring now seems to be functioning properly. 

Problems still to be tracked down are the non-functioning backup lights and interior courtesy lights. Since the backup lights worked fine when I direct wired them to a power supply, my guess is the problem with both might reside in ancient light hardware. I installed new LED bulbs in the courtesy lights, so that might have something to do with them not operating.

A couple of defective parts really ticked me off. Two new 20amp fuses had internal opens and no indication of being blown. Since I had purchased a new box of fuses, I didn’t bother to check the country of origin before throwing out the box, but there is no doubt in my mind that it was China.

After getting the dash lights and switches working, I pulled the speedometer and returned it to the manufacturer for repair. I have no idea how long that will take, but they responded to my questions quickly so I am hopeful It was beyond the five-year warranty, so my procrastination will cost me again!

With no pictures to document my time-consuming electrical work, I had planned on making a video of the lights operating, but I pulled the speedometer before I remembered. At least when the repaired part returns I can reassemble the dash, and hopefully the console with the tach, HVAC controls and shifter mounted. That wiring still needs testing.

I did take a few minutes to reproduce the stock inner fender braces for my friend's mostly original '56 Fury. Bending sheet metal is not his forte and since I have a few metal working tools, I give him a hand when I can.

Like many other things, the design of those braces was apparently different between Chrysler factories. The ones on my Belvedere were totally different than those on my Fury parts car. I designed the ones on my Belvedere, but my friend likes to keep things as close to OEM as possible.